Why Do We Overeat?

Why do we overeat?

When I say overeat, I don't mean we necessarily pig out on huge amounts of food all the time. Some thin people eat a lot more than some fat people, but their metabolism is such that they can burn off any excess calories as heat.

What I mean is that even if we don't eat a lot, we eat more than we need for the amount of exercise we get. Thus, the only way we can lose weight is to eat less, even if we're not eating a tremendous amount now.

So the question is why we're eating more than we need. Only when we understand why we overeat can we take steps to remedy the situation.

Many people who don't have weight problems assume that overweight people all have emotional problems that cause them to overeat. In some cases, this may be true. Think of the cliché about the woman who breaks up with her boyfriend and goes to the freezer to eat an entire carton of ice cream.

But many overweight people don't have emotional problems. They're quite happy with their lives, except for the nagging to lose weight they get from almost everyone else.

Think of the days when fat women were considered desirable, or when fat men were considered to have high status because it meant they could afford enough food. Did all these people have emotional problems that caused them to gain weight? I don't think so.

Many people who don't have weight problems assume that overweight people simply don't have any willpower. But if that were true, anyone who was overweight would also have other signs of willpower deficit, an inability to refuse anything pleasurable, such as lots of unnecessary possessions, tremendous credit card bills, drug addictions, and probably sexually transmitted diseases as well.

Again, there are probable some people who fit this picture of lack of willpower, but most overweight people do not. In fact, many have lost weight by maintaining very strict diets that require a tremendous amount of willpower for a long time. The problem is that they get exhausted by the effort, the diet gets abandoned, and the weight comes back.

Imagine that you're out for dinner with 5 friends. They all order dessert, and they're all normal weight. You also order dessert, but you're overweight. Does that mean you have less willpower than your friends?

One reason some people overeat is that there's something wrong with their appetite control. One woman had a thin boyfriend who used to keep forgetting to eat unless she reminded him. He was thin.

Obviously, it's easy to stay thin if you're never hungry. But if you're hungry all the time, it's very difficult. I discussed this problem here.

Some people overeat because they were raised to believe that wasting food is a sin. "Think of the starving Armenians," we were told when I was growing up, although no one could explain to me exactly how cleaning my plate would help the starving Armenians. Habits like cleaning your plate are difficult to change. If you eat at restaurants that give you huge servings and you can't waste food and don't want to lug around a doggie bag, it's easy to overeat.